Getty Bobby Petrino's Missouri State Bears face a touch challenge in FCS powerhouse North Dakota State on Saturday.
Bobby Petrino looks for his biggest win since taking over Missouri State when the No. 17 Bears (4-2) visit the No. 3 North Dakota State Bison (6-0) on Saturday at the Fargodome.
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The game (3:30 p.m. ET start time) will be televised locally on ABC North Dakota, but if you don’t have cable or you live somewhere else, anyone in the US can watch Missouri State vs North Dakota State live on ESPN+:
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Missouri State vs North Dakota State Preview
Now that second-year Missouri State head coach Bobby Petrino has the once-dormant Bears off to a strong start, the perennial power of the FCS awaits.
“It’s just exciting to go in there and play them,” Petrino said about North Dakota State in a press conference this week. “You have to go through them to win the conference. They have the tradition, the facilities. They’ve got great players. Really well-coached. So it’s a great challenge for us.”
NDSU has an elite defense that eclipses two of its eight championship teams from the 2010s with a whopping 7.2 points allowed and 226.5 yards allowed per game according to GoBison.com. Petrino, who formerly coached Louisville before his comeback at MSU, has a high-flying offense coming into the Fargodome to challenge the Bison. The Bears average 33.5 points and 435.2 yards per game.
“This will be a really good challenge for Code Green,” Bison head coach Matt Entz said about his defense in a press conference this week.
MSU has a dynamic dual-threat quarterback in Jason Shelley, who has 1,663 yards and 13 touchdowns passing in addition to 246 yards and four touchdowns on the ground. Entz said his defense will need to “contain” Shelley’s mobility.
NDSU’s pass rush comes into the game ranked fifth in the FCS for sacks led by Eli Mostaert, who has five this season per GoBison.com. Scoring in the red zone won’t come easy for the Bears either as the Bison the toughest red zone defense in the FCS, allowing teams to score 42.9% of the time per GoBison.com.
The Bears have a 230-pound back in Tobias Little to give the ball to in the red zone. He has four touchdowns this season though most of those came against Illinois State in early October.
“The one thing I need to make sure our players understand is that we don’t have to do anything extraordinary to win the game. We just have to play good Bear football in all three phases,” Petrino said.
NDSU’s offense didn’t look extraordinary last week in a 20-0 over Illinois State. Bison quarterback Quincy Patterson II threw for 124 yards, a touchdown, and two interceptions. No Bison running back came close to 100 yards while Patterson hit the century mark on 18 carries.
MSU’s defense allows 24.6 points and 379.5 yards per game, and the Bears will have to slow down a Bison squad that has scored 28 or more points in every game inside the dome this season.